WARSAW, POLAND—A couple of years ago, 19-year-old Italian striker Mario Balotelli — then one of the most touted talents in world football — was driving by a women’s prison in Brescia.

As he passed, he noted that the front gates were open. So he drove in.

Balotelli and his 17-year-old brother were surrounded and taken into custody for what must have seemed for a surreal moment to be history’s most brazen jailbreak. During the subsequent interrogation, asked why he’d done it, Balotelli used the pretty spectacular excuse that he was curious.

As the Italians move forward in this tournament, they face a key question. The question is not whether Balotelli can be controlled, because he can’t. It is whether he can be harnessed, like some unstable element.

It’s hard to imagine they can progress far without him. It’s also easy to believe they could crash out because of him.

“I’m more a man than Peter Pan,” Balotelli insisted Saturday, referencing a very apt comparison thrown on him by his own agent.

We toss around the word “genius” in sport, but Balotelli is the rarity who displays all aspects of that condition — including the inability to grasp the behavioural norms that confine the rest of us.

There is the time he was found carrying thousands in pound notes in his pocket after a car crash and when asked why, replied, “Because I’m rich.”

Or the time he lit his $3 million mansion on fire while launching fireworks out a bathroom window. A day later, he scored for Manchester City and pulled up his jersey to reveal a T-shirt with the words, “Why Always Me?” scrawled across it.

There is the fact that he routinely throws his Maserati up on any old street corner in Manchester, forgets where it is and then expects club officials to collect it from the pound. That’s reportedly happened 25 times.

It has been seriously suggested here that a special security detail laid on for Balotelli is not intended to protect him from anyone, but to ensure that he doesn’t wander off and forget to come back.

There are also darker stories — the time he leaned out to throw darts at youth teammates as “a prank,” the many expulsions for on-field meltdowns. When you watch him live, you can feel the heat coming off him, the frustration gathering as the game deepens without a goal. But regardless of what’s going on in the match, the eye is drawn to him.

The son of African refugees who landed in Sicily, Balotelli was born with severe health problems. His parents surrendered him as an infant to child services. He was raised by an Italian foster family in an entirely white section of Brescia.

He was a professional footballer by the age of 15, and playing for Inter Milan by 16. His tantalizing combination of size, speed and skill, as well as the troubled backstory, has allowed him miles of rope with his employers. He’s been pulling it taut ever since.

After being dropped to the bench in the final group game against Ireland, Balotelli scored a late, spectacular goal as a substitute. He rose to his feet and began screaming. Teammate Leonardo Bonucci leapt forward and slapped a hand over Balotelli’s mouth. Most figure he was aiming hard words at Italy manager Cesare Prandelli.

“The day he realizes no one is trying to hurt him and that we all want him to do well, is the day he will progress,” Prandelli said coolly afterward.

The next day, Balotelli was photographed lounging around while his teammates did push-ups, and sticking a corner flag between his legs for a laugh. Like the bull, Balotelli does not need to have the red cape explained to him. He only knows to charge at it.

However you feel about Italy or Balotelli, he should be roundly supported in one fight.

He is the collision point between two conflicting trends — the rising management cult and the dwindling tradition of the talented flake.

Whatever the endeavour, management seeks to impose order. The flake is an agent of chaos. The space between the two is called entertainment.

Italy is famously a team of cogs. Balotelli is the wrench. Short of lobotomy, it seems unlikely he will “progress” to the lockstep Prandelli would (entirely self-interestedly) wish on him.

More on thestar.com

We value respectful and thoughtful discussion. Readers are encouraged to flag comments that fail to meet the standards outlined in our
Community Code of Conduct.
For further information, including our legal guidelines, please see our full website
Terms and Conditions.